Manning sentenced to 35 years in WikiLeaks case

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted into a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013, before a sentencing hearing in his court martial. The military judge overseeing Manning's trial said she will announce on Wednesday his sentence for giving reams of classified information to WikiLeaks. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

(Updated at 11:56 p.m.) FORT MEADE, Md.— Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison for giving hundreds of thousands of secret military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks in one of the nation’s biggest leak cases since the Pentagon Papers more than a generation ago.

Flanked by his lawyers, Manning, 25, stood at attention in his dress uniform and showed no reaction as military judge Col. Denise Lind announced the punishment without explanation during a brief hearing.

Among the spectators, there was a gasp, and one woman buried her face in her hands.

“I’m shocked. I did not think she would do that,” said Manning supporter Jim Holland, of San Diego. “Thirty-five years, my Lord.”

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The former intelligence analyst was found guilty last month of 20 crimes, including six violations of the Espionage Act, as part of the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on media leaks. He was acquitted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, an offense that could have meant life in prison without parole.

Manning could have gotten 90 years behind bars. Prosecutors asked for at least 60 as a warning to other soldiers, while Manning’s lawyer suggested he get no more than 25, because some of the documents he leaked will be declassified by then.

He will get credit for the more than three years he has been held but will have to serve at least one-third of his sentence before he is eligible for parole. He was also demoted to private and dishonorably discharged.

After the judge imposed the sentence, guards hurried Manning out of the courtroom as about a half-dozen supporters shouted from the back: “We’ll keep fighting for you, Bradley!” and “You’re our hero!”

Prosecutors had no immediate comment, while the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and other activists decried the punishment.

“When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system,” said Ben Wizner, head of the ACLU’s speech and technology project.

Gabriel Schoenfeld, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank and author of the book “Necessary Secrets,” welcomed Manning’s punishment.

“The sentence is a tragedy for Bradley Manning, but it is one he brought upon himself,” he said. “It will certainly serve to bolster deterrence against other potential leakers.”

But he also warned that the sentence will ensure that Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker who has taken refuge in Russia, “will do his best never to return to the United States and face a trial and stiff sentence.”

Manning digitally copied and released more than 700,000 documents, including Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department cables, while working in 2010 in Iraq.

The Crescent, Okla., native also leaked video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that mistakenly killed at least nine people, including a Reuters photographer.

A potentially more explosive leak case unfolded as Manning’s court-martial was underway, when Snowden was charged with espionage for exposing the NSA’s Internet and telephone surveillance programs.

At his trial, Manning said he gave the material to the secrets-spilling website WikiLeaks to expose the U.S. military’s “bloodlust” and generate debate over the wars and U.S. policy.

During the sentencing phase, he apologized for the damage he caused, saying, “When I made these decisions, I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.”

His lawyers also argued that Manning suffered extreme inner turmoil over his gender identity — his feeling that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body — while serving in the macho military during the “don’t ask, don’t tell” era. Among the evidence was a photo of him in a blond wig and lipstick.

Defense attorney David Coombs argued that Manning had been full of youthful idealism and “really, truly, genuinely believed that this information could make a difference.”

Prosecutors showed that al-Qaida used material from the helicopter attack in a propaganda video and that Osama bin Laden presumably read some of the leaked documents. Some of the material was found in bin Laden’s hideout after he was killed.

Also, government witnesses testified the leaks endangered U.S. intelligence sources, some of whom were moved to other countries for their safety. And several ambassadors were recalled, expelled or reassigned because of embarrassing disclosures.

The Obama administration has charged seven people with leaking to the news media, while only three people were prosecuted in all previous administrations combined.

Prosecutors called Manning an anarchist and an attention-seeking traitor, while supporters have hailed him as a whistleblower and likened him to Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

The secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam was released to The New York Times and other newspapers in a case touched off an epic clash between the Nixon administration and the press and led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling on the First Amendment.

In a telephone interview after Manning’s sentencing, Ellsberg called the soldier “one more casualty of a horrible, wrongful war that he tried to shorten.”

“I think his example will always be an inspiration of civil and moral courage to truth tellers in the future,” Ellsberg said.

A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Michael Ratner, has suggested Manning’s conviction could make it easier for federal prosecutors to get an indictment against Assange as a co-conspirator.

But other legal experts said the Australian’s status as a foreigner and a publisher make it unlikely he will be indicted.

EARLIER VERSION OF THIS STORY

(Updated at 10:25 a.m.) FORT MEADE, Md. — A military judge has sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for giving a trove of military and diplomatic secrets to the website WikiLeaks.

Manning was sentenced Wednesday at Fort Meade, near Baltimore.

The judge convicted the 25-year-old soldier last month of 20 offenses, including six violations of the Espionage Act. He could have been sentenced to 90 years in prison.

Prosecutors had asked for at least 60 years behind bars. Manning’s lawyer suggested no more than 25, because by then, some of the documents Manning leaked will be declassified.

EARLIER VERSION OF THIS STORY

FORT MEADE, Md. — More than three years after his arrest in Iraq, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is set to learn the price he’ll pay for leaking an unprecedented volume of classified information to a once-obscure, anti-secrecy website.

Manning’s sentencing Wednesday in a military courtroom at Fort Meade, near Baltimore, caps a 12-week trial and a much longer legal battle over the former intelligence analyst’s intentions when he reached out to WikiLeaks.

Prosecutors portray Manning, now 25, as “the determined insider,” an anarchist hacker and traitor who started working within weeks of his 2009 deployment to provide WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange with exactly what they wanted. The government has urged the military judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, to sentence him to 60 years in prison for crimes that include six Espionage Act violations, five theft counts and computer fraud.

Manning and his defense team maintain he was an idealistic soldier who wanted to expose brutal truths about America’s military and diplomatic corps. They say the gay soldier’s gender-identity crisis in the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military reached a crescendo that caused him to act out, mistakenly believing that by pouring secret government documents and video onto the Internet, he could change the way the world viewed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and, perhaps, all wars.

“I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people,” Manning said in a courtroom apology last week.

The leaked material included video of a U.S. helicopter attack that killed at least two civilians — a Reuters news photographer and his driver. The 700,000 leaked documents endangered the lives of U.S. intelligence sources and prompted several ambassadors to be recalled, reassigned or expelled, prosecutors showed.

Defense attorney David Coombs has suggested a sentence no longer than the expiration date of the classified information Manning leaked: 25 years.

Manning acknowledged wrongdoing in February and offered to serve up to 20 years in prison for lesser versions of the charged offenses. But prosecutors led by Maj. Ashden Fein sought to hold him accountable for serious crimes, and largely succeeded. Lind convicted Manning July 30 on 20 of the 22 charges. However, prosecutors were unable to prove that Manning aided the enemy, a crime punishable by life in prison.

Still, he faces up to 90 years for the convictions. And prosecutors were adamant in asking Lind to ensure that Manning spend most of his remaining years locked up.

On Wednesday morning, a small group of Manning supporters — fewer than 10 — gathered with “Free Bradley Manning” posters outside the main gate of Fort Meade. One of the group’s leaders, Jeff Paterson, said he realistically hoped for a sentence of about 10 years.

“Obviously, we believe Bradley Manning has served plenty of time in prison,” he said. Paterson added that “today is simply the beginning of a new campaign to do everything we can for Bradley,” including supporting him through appeals.

Military prisoners can earn up to 120 days a year off their sentence for good behavior and job performance, but must serve at least one-third of any prison sentence before they can become eligible for parole.

Manning will get credit for about 3 1/2 years of pretrial confinement, including 112 days for being illegally punished by harsh conditions at the Quantico, Va., Marine Corps brig.

He was held at Quantico for nine months, from July 2010 to April 2011, when he was moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Throughout his time at Quantico, he was designated a “maximum custody” detainee and considered at risk of either suicide or harming himself or others. His lawyers asserted he was locked up alone for at least 23 hours a day, forced to sleep naked for several nights and required to stand naked at attention one morning.

Under military law, the verdict and sentence must be reviewed — and may be reduced — by the commander of the Military District of Washington, currently Maj. Gen. Jeffery S. Buchanan. Besides the court-martial record, Manning’s defense team can submit other pieces of information in a bid for leniency.

If Buchanan approves a sentence that includes a bad-conduct discharge, a dishonorable discharge or confinement for a year or more, the case will be automatically reviewed by the Army Court of Criminal Appeals.

Further appeals can be made to the military’s highest court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Amnesty International and the Bradley Manning Support Network have announced an online petition asking President Barack Obama to pardon Manning.